We Marched Through Fog
by SheWhoScrawls
Summary: The Battle of Germantown, on October 4th, 1777, was a devastating defeat for the Continental Army. But some heroics of the battle were not recorded publicly, lost in the whirlwinds of war and the chaos of a miserable campaign. While most of the army retreated from fog and artillery, two men ran boldly into it, and their actions, while ultimately futile, deserve recognition.


A/N: Hey, all! this is my first published Hamilton fic. That said, it is technically based on the historical figures, not the characters in the musical! I pretty much exclusively write the historical figures, as they're much easier for me to visualize. This was written for a short story contest this year, the prompt of which was "unleash your inner hero." I get results on Halloween, so I'll update this when I do! I'll have another author's note to clarify a few things at the end, but PLEASE leave a review if you read, it would mean the world to me! - Ell

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We Marched Through Fog

An Expressive Eyewitness Account of the Battle of Germantown

By Lieutenant-Colonel Alexander Hamilton

Dated 6th October, 1777

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I don't know why we expected from October the same things September had given us.

Summer ended the final day of September, just like clockwork. Just like it should be. Dawn of the first of October gave us a thin layer of frost across the fields along the Conestoga Road. By mid-day, it had risen to a temperature warm enough to make our skin itch beneath our woolen jackets, and nightfall brought us another breath spiked with ice. The daylight and warmth was still frequent enough that we thought the earth would be good to our cause. I curse how wrong we were.

The moment in early September we learned that Howe's Grand Army would be moving forth from Head of Elk to seize the settlement of Germantown, the General's cercle l'intérieur worked night and day to formulate a double plan of attack - one wing to protect Philadelphia from Cornwallis' advance, another to cut off the serpent's head, so to speak, and confront Howe's main body from over the Chestnut Hill. I recall from my position in the wings that His Excellency's generals were in a great state of consternation upon trying to divide our already questionable troops in half. It pains me to admit on behalf of my cause that the strategists breathed a sigh of relief on the 26th when we watched those damn redcoats march directly down the Conestoga Road into Philadelphia.

The distress of that day still grips my soul, a week later. All our moves to block their advance had failed, and having given many suggestions in the sessions of planning before the irredeemable failure at Brandywine, I held, no, hold, myself accountable. More accountable than I should, I am sure, but that is not why we are here.

Every soldier stood solemnly outside his tent to watch the inglorious procession, and General Washington and his officers, myself and my dear Laurens included, trickled out of the tavern-keeper's home we had taken over as a rudimentary headquarters so that we could witness the hope slipping from our fingers.

I have not known His Excellency long, but he is usually of fair temper, and these past two months I have not seen him sink into such an irritability. He refused to speak to even his most trusted advisors, a fact which gave the aides de camp great stress, as his input was required on dozens of reports due to Congress that week. Our Continental Congress had heard of the British crossing the Schuylkill River and fled Philadelphia a week before, and communication with them was fevered and urgent. We worked day and night, particularly John and I, being the most dedicated of the secretaries in the General's trust.

On this particular night, 26th September, the affectionate Colonel Laurens and I took our stacks of paper back to our chamber and continued working by the light of a single candle and the rays of the harvest moon outside. We wrote until a cloud came and covered the moon, and John threw down his quill in a moment of frustration. The hollow reservoir had not been drained, and a splatter of ink was thrown across his paper. He looked upon it with much disdain, then shook his head and turned to me. "We should resign ourselves to rest, Alexander. The following days are not going to get any easier."

I reluctantly agreed, and we stretched out our cramped limbs and shuffled to the bed which we were being forced to share for lack of preparation and space.

John first leaned over and pushed open the window. I tilted my head in his direction. The air was chilly, and this action seemed counterproductive.

He looked over at me before climbing into bed. "We will be all the more melancholy without the night sweeping over our senses."

He was right, quite naturally. The scent of the pine wafting across the green, the chirping of the still active crickets, and the sight of the moon over the treetops gave me less of a sense of isolation and more one of quiet harmony.

We lay next to each other, the inches between us buzzing with unspoken energy and desire. John's eyes had lingered on me for too long since I arrived, and I confess that my gaze too had a habit of following him around the room behind backs. His interactions with me had been warm and affectionate, bordering on the flirtatiousness of a French lady of the courts, and our mutual avoidance of physical contact at night was as telling as it was meant not to be.

Observant as he was, John must have noticed the change in my breathing, for he turned his head and asked, "Are you well?"

"We've lost the capital, John, and I fear I am at fault."

"I do not recall anyone placing you in command of the continental forces."

"You know I helped draw the plans for Brandywine. If we'd forced them into retreat there, everything would be all right."

The gap between us closed in an instant, and John placed a solitary finger over my lips. "As did I. As did our friend Lafayette, who outranks us threefold. That does not put any of us at fault, little lion."

My face grew hot at the use of the nickname he'd given me a week after my appointment, due to my stature and passion, and I fumbled for another way to lay the blame upon myself. "You cut off an entire battalion of Knyphausen's men, and that overeager French poodle took a bullet in the leg to save our front lines. My actions in battle hardly contend."

"Would you rather be the one inadvertently tripping everyone in close proximity because he is forced to hold his leg at an angle?"

"Yes. A leg injury at least earns you marks as a hero."

John sighed and grabbed my arm without any warning whatsoever. I made a small noise of indignation, but silenced myself when he pulled my right arm over his shoulder, forcing me to roll with my head almost on top of his chest.

"You can relax, Alex. It's the middle of the night."

Slowly, gradually, I eased my head down and pressed it against his firm chest. He tangled his fingers in my thick, wavy hair, and I willed myself to pay attention to his heartbeat and breathing, and that is how we spent the night.

But my words get away from me, as they often do in public and in private. I do not mean to tell you, if there should ever in the future be a 'you,' about my follies in this treacherous campaign. John says I have heroics to account for, ones that the history books will be unaware of, so that is what I am here to do while I lay here bedridden. I have only today gained back my strength, and the General has forbidden me from the strain of official paperwork, so I take up my pen for a personal cause.

On the morning of the 3rd of October, our plans were finalized. Our troops were being assigned commanders and given explicit orders. We were to march at dusk, covering the 16 miles from our encampment over the Chestnut Hill towards Germantown. The cloud formations, the behavior of the wildlife, and even a barometer from an old trunk of General Washington's confirmed our hopes — the signs were good, the weather would be clear, and our attack would be mounted in the early hours of the morning.

Our army being as disorganized and haphazardly uniformed as it is, quite a number of our veteran men still being in possession of their British coats from the Seven Years' War, and the lack of an early October sunrise meant that our troops would have an exceedingly difficult time telling each other apart from the enemy. Thus it was decided that each and every soldier in our advance would firmly attach a torn strip of paper to his hat, and by the stark contrast of the parchment would the patriots identify each other.

Four columns were led into the mouth of the beast: a division of militia, a front headed by Generals Conway, Sullivan, and Wayne, a second, smaller front, headed by General Greene, and another division of militia on the right. However, before the sun began to rise, there came a thick fog which rolled off the still warm waters of the Schuylkill River to the northwest, and our progress was slowed immeasurably. We hoped to reach the town limits long before daylight. This was not to be the case. John and I had been placed along the right side of General Greene's line, and before long, both the militia and the rear guard of Greene's men were enveloped in panic. The story goes that a man somewhere tripped on a sizeable rock and his musket went off. Divided by an opaque shroud, they began firing at one another, the papers in their tricorns now invisible and obsolete.

John and I hung back, pulling as many out of the chaos as we were able. His Excellency rode down from his post on top of Chestnut Hill to restore as much order as he could. I do not envy him up there on his Mount Olympus, watching humanity dissolve into fear-driven brutality beneath him. He caught a glimpse of us through the haze and ordered us to make for Sullivan's front to warn them, should the fog impede their plan of attack, which was a vanguard of artillery along the Germantown Road to distract the enemy, and the main body around to the back of the town, meant to surprise them as we had at Trenton the previous Christmas and take as many prisoners as we could.

It took longer than we anticipated to weave our way to the front lines without causing fellow advances any alarm. Dawn had broken by the time we drew within sight of Sullivan's vanguard, they were already in place mere yards from the British pickets, firing and being fired upon. A shining horse rode out of the gate, and fog lent an echoing quality to the unmistakable bellow of Commander Sir William Howe. "For shame, Light Infantry! I never saw you retreat before! Form! Form! It is only a scouting party!"

I turned to John in wonder, his face fogged over mere inches from me. Could it be that Commander Howe himself was unaware the opposition he was facing?

John's features were grim and harrowed, and he took hold of my arm and shook his head. "Come. We haven't time to wonder."

Squinting against the palpable threads of ether, we pressed on until I caught a glimpse of Sullivan's braided tricorn. The gilt edging was the only thing clearly visible, although the fog here was still relatively thin.

I cleared my throat, willing to the surface my biggest voice from my summers of oration at King's College. "General Sullivan! Sir! We come bearing warning! — We are Americans, my dear General, you need not worry!"

His hand still resting on his sword with caution, Sullivan advanced towards us, the tendons in his neck extended as he strained for sight. "Colonels Hamilton and Laurens! Why are you not attached to the eastern advances?"

"They are impeded, sir," John rushed ahead of me, his cheeks the color of shining apples from exertion. "It is doubtful they will make any more leeway. As you may have noticed, there appears to be a bit of a, ah, visibility problem."

Sullivan gestured around him impatiently. "Yes, oblivion to this is rather difficult. So, pray tell me why you coming all around the base of Washington's post to inform me was at all warranted."

"We intended to reach you before it spread," I explained, glancing at John to make sure he was dedicating a moment to catching his breath. "I see we were too late, but not entirely. The whole of the right flank is in chaos. Not only was our progress less direct, but dense fog from the north has incited confusion and friendly fire. At least here you can still distinguish your own men."

"For the present," Sullivan said grimly, pointing behind us.

We turned as one, two interlaced cogs moving each other along their orbit. A dense wall of white and gray crept like a living creature along the field towards us. Its tendrils were already upon us, weaving around our legs, torsos and necks, trying to choke us out. Whatever you are attempting today, it seemed to say, stay away. Turn back, or I will force you. The smoke of musket-fire and cannons and other assorted artillery absorbed into nature's haze, I am sure, a grim allusion to the industry of modern life and its toll on our surroundings.

Through the fog, Sullivan apparently saw something he did not like, for he clenched his fists and kicked at a small rock in anger. "Damn it to hell!"

"General? What is the matter?" An inch away from me, I felt John's shoulders tighten as he struggled to find the apparent problem.

Sullivan pointed. "Can you see that darker shape back in the fog?"

It was almost an imperceptible difference from the shades of gray around it, but it was there. "Is that...Chew Mansion?" I asked worriedly, thinking of the carefully scouted and drawn maps of the area.

"And it's occupied," murmured John, pointing at glimpses of gold and red that peeked through breaks in the still arriving mist. "Not by us."

"They've broken through village limits to set up pickets at the mansion," Sullivan spat darkly. "They're onto us. They've found out exactly what they're up against."

A sudden volley of rapid fire and subsequent yelling reached our ears. Muttering another curse, Sullivan pulled his spyglass from the leather case on his belt and extended it in the direction of the Germantown Road. "Howe's men have broken through my vanguard," he said in disbelief. "They're retreating up the road like mice! Now my troops have nothing distracting from them while they round the back of the town limits...It is finished."

I turned back and forth rapidly, a curl of hair escaping from my ribbon and clinging to my forehead. I studied the fog, studied the shadows of retreating artillery and the British infantry chasing after them. "Perhaps not...General, would you permit Colonel Laurens and I an unsanctioned expedition?"

"Alexander, what are you — by God, I see it!" John exclaimed.

Sullivan stepped even with us warily. "I am unsure what you gentlemen are proposing, but given our desperation, I am inclined to agree."

"The extent of the fog will be on us in a matter of minutes," I explained, gesturing with my hands to illustrate the fog moving in. "It will be fully enveloping the road and the positions of your troops. You will be hidden from view, and John - Colonel Laurens - and I will face the town straight on and direct all the pickets towards us."

"A tirant feu? You mean to draw all of their direct fire to the two of you? And you mean to make it out alive?"

"I mean to get you inside the town. I must insist that you trust me, your options are few and growing dimmer with each second."

Sullivan shook his head, barely daring to believe that it could work. "The fog will be played to both our advantages. Godspeed, men. I'll pray to meet you on the other side."

"Until we meet again." John offered the General a salute, and I followed suit before turning away to stride purposefully towards our aim.

"Alexander, you know that I support your strategies, but I am leery of the fact that I am uninformed as to how exactly you plan to draw all enemy fire towards two lone men."

"We're going to fool them into it," I replied, an inadvertent growl creeping into my tone as the full air of the battlefield consumed me.

"Pardon, what?"

"John! What if we weren't two men? What if we were a regiment?"

"Alexander, that is insane."

"Insane enough to work. Their nerves are high, the fog is thick, their minds are suggestible. All we must do is play on that. We shout orders to an invisible regiment.We drill them back and forth and double back as many times as we please. Before long, they are imagining the shapes of 200 or more men behind us, and they concentrate their artillery on a direct attack. And we mustn't believe their aim to be formidable in these conditions."

John shook his head, but he didn't disagree. "Well then, we haven't a more opportune time."

Impulsively, I grabbed John's collar. We were far enough into the shroud. No one would see. I pulled him in by the front of his jacket and pushed my lips against his, feeling both our faces flush slightly. I pushed back slightly, and whispered in his ear. "Now."

We wove seamlessly into the thick of the action, concentrating our efforts wherever the fog was thickest, marching as one, shouting field commands at regular intervals. "Infantry, halt! Step light! Shoulder muskets!"

After several moments, I heard shouting from the still distant town limits. Our movement was heavily curved, with slow progress. This was not distressing to us, for it was our exact intention. We did not plan to actually enter the town.

The shouts became more numerous. They had called for reinforcements. Good. The musket fire began in our direction, a heavy fire, but not difficult to avoid. An increment of reloading. More yelling. More fire. Then the smell of large quantities of gunpowder being packed nearby.

"My God, is that —" John had no time to finish.

I was urgently scouting for nearby shelter. Ten feet to our left was a low stone wall about three and a half feet high, one of the sturdy ones built by the Pennsylvania Dutch. I pulled John towards it and we hurled ourselves over it just as the flash exploded directly in front of us.

The ground was rigid with little rain and much frost, and my shoulder landed sharply with most of my weight on top of it. The joint exploded in sharp pain, and there was another, duller ache in my right leg. Grunting, I scrambled to pull myself up into a sitting position against the backside of the wall.

I glanced over at John, my chest heaving. "Are you hurt?"

He looked down and shook his head. "No, but you are."

I lowered my gaze and scanned my body, confused. The right knee of my trousers was rather badly torn. Scraped on the wall? No, it oozed too much blood for a simple laceration. John was already tearing a sleeve off his jacket to wrap tightly around the wound. I shifted the limb slightly, and as pressure was added to it, I felt tiny shards of metal pierce my flesh even further.

The pain hadn't yet hit me, but the excitement of battle was making me feel giddy, and the amount of blood soaking the middle of my leg was rather dizzying. Before I could help it, I found myself laughing and saying, "Thank God you had the presence of mind not to bestow upon me a piece of your trousers."

John finished wrapping my leg and slapped me across my sore shoulder with a scowl.

I do not know what time this was, but we remained behind that wall for some hours, taking shots where we could. We witnessed a brigade from Greene's column become detached from their leader, and collide with a brigade of General Wayne's men, who mistook each other once again for the enemy and fired on each other for an extended period of time. Taken with grief, we watched this terrifying spectacle unfold, unable to do anything to extend sentiments of peace.

We stayed until the firing stopped, and we heard the unmistakable sounds of all units retreating, which I have been told was about ten o'clock in the morning, when the losses became too heavy and the fog unbearable.

"Can you walk?" Asked John.

I nodded in the affirmative, but buckled to the right side when I stood, and would have fallen back onto the ground had John not caught me in his sturdy arms.

He wrapped my right arm around his shoulder, just like the week before. "Lean on me. We have a long way back to camp." And that is how we proceeded for the next few miles past Chestnut Hill, until the dim halo of light in the sky was past its peak. This entire time, he carried my whole weight against him, which was not formidable considering my stature, but was concerning his in comparison. All this he carried, but did not ask to stop. Indeed, it was I who begged for a brief respite once we had reached a tree that marked the halfway point. We rested about ten minutes, then pressed on. It is by a miracle of God that we made it to the edges of camp by late afternoon, for I had thought given that I only had use of half my legs, we had been moving at a much slower pace than we evidently were.

John began to steer me towards the hospital tent, but I held out my arm in protest. It was packed with the gravely wounded, the few surgeons most definitely overworked to their limits.

"Alexander, it'll become infected!"

"It won't! Please, just take me to the parlor."

He grumbled under his breath a good piece, but ultimately led me in the back door of the empty headquarters and into the parlor. He pushed me into an armchair, knowing full well I would be incapable of standing again on my own, and said, "Now. I am going to fetch a doctor."

Panic seized me, and I grabbed hold of his hand, my grip weaker than I would like. "It isn't bleeding much, not anymore. I will clean it when I wash tonight, you may make sure of it. Let the doctors tend to our men with more grievous injuries than mine, in the shoulder or chest, perhaps."

John took a step closer to me, holding onto my hand like it was a lifeline. "It's been hours and hours, Alex. If there isn't infection, there certainly will be. You cannot refuse treatment like this."

"It isn't that bad, mon cherie!" I lifted my leg to demonstrate, and bit back a hiss. "Just sit with me a while."

It took several long moments during which he stared out the window with his lips pursed in consideration, but he finally relented and sat down across from me, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

We talked for hours, until the fog miraculously began to clear and we could see the sun beginning to dip below the horizon. We talked about the battle, about the state of the war, about his father's position in congress. John confessed to me his lifelong obsession with watercolors and sketches of wildlife, particularly turtles and southern fish. An artist of nature must have a keen eye for detail, and I asked him if that was why he stared so long at my eyes, at my hair, at the way my fingers moved.

He flushed and said teasingly that it might be.

My leg burned like cold fire, but I was determined not to let my depleted strength show. However, I was heating up inside, and as much as I was trying to convince myself that it was my attraction for John, I knew that it wasn't so. It was when I groggily asked him when he'd lit the fireplace that he jumped up, pressed two fingers briefly to my wrist, and sprinted off before my delirious mind could compose an argument.

I would later learn that my loyal and affectionate friend did not go to the surgeon's tent. No, he ran until he found General Washington and his personal physician.

I fell unconscious a mere moment after he left, I suppose, for when I awoke, the doctor was unwrapping my leg to clean, and the General himself was kneeling before me, waiting to give me a spectacular dressing down for refusing medical care.

He was right, naturally. The opposing opinions were stacked against me. Had I agreed at once to be seen, the infection would have been minor, and I would have been fully healed in two or three weeks. However, I am imbued with a taste for valiance and heroics, and my rash decisions have landed me bedridden for the immediate future, and desk bound until my leg has fully healed.

The first night, my fever was violent, and John has told me he was unable to leave my side to fetch help for fear that I'd slip away. I do not remember much, only that my brain, desperate for cool relief, transported me back to the island of my youth. Not to pleasant memories, of cool breezes and splashing waves, but to the nightmare of a hurricane I endured only five years ago. Clinging to the eaves of the roof, fighting the wind and the rushing current of the floodwaters. The ledgers I had scrambled to save from the office of the clerk to whom I was apprenticed, lost in the undertow. And myself...slipping, unable to fight harder against drowning. The next thing I was aware of, I was being shaken. By the winds? No. And there had been a voice, John's, tinged with fear. "Alexander! Open your eyes. Please." Almost a sob. "Don't leave me here, Alexander. My little lion. Keep fighting. They're saying you're a hero."

The next day, my fever was better, but I was too exhausted to lift my head. Today, however, I am restless, and have followed the suggestion to write this record. I fear repercussions of what I have written about John, but I do not intend to allow this letter out of my safekeeping. I shall keep it close to my chest always. I have learned many qualities since arriving in this country, discretion being most prominent among them.

I have heard the news. The British pickets had been distracted, but fired artillery and realized the advance they'd been opposing was a ruse. They raced to cover all exposed gaps and captured most of Sullivan's men. If we had not disappeared behind that wall, they could have entered the city unnoticed, and we would have won. Perhaps even captured Howe.

"We would both be dead, Alexander," John was quick to remind me this morning when I expressed myself to him. "We'd have been hit directly by the shell, and they still would have seen that it was a ruse."

So perhaps our self-preservation did not cost us the battle. Perhaps our day was just doomed, as the fog seemed to be telling us. Can a hero rise out of such astounding defeat? Maybe. I hear General Washington coming down the corridor now. Coming to see me, perhaps. This year has given us the most embarrassing defeats we have yet seen. His Excellency's army is inexperienced, undisciplined, disorganized. But we defeated the Hessians at Trenton last December. We thought we would have a similar victory this week, but it was not to be. Heroes really do rise out of nothing. General Washington has, and I am certain that his greatest triumphs for this young nation are yet to come. I have been nothing. I will never forget what nothing is like. I aim to rise further away from it every day. And this riptide may threaten to pull me away, but I will fight this war to the end. I will rise out of nothing. I aim to spill blood for this country, and I aim to stand with her. Heroes aren't always remembered for dying. Sometimes they are heroes for living. I have lived. And someday...they will know my name.

— A. Ham

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A/N:cercle l'interieur - French for inner circle

aides de camp - the formal name for the officers General Washington employed as secretaries

tirant feu - French, literally, drawing of fire

mon cherie - my dear/my darling (Hamilton was known to refer to Laurens as such)

All my information about the battle is historically backed, except for Hamilton and Laurens' advance.

My romantic pairing between the two of them is not based upon the characters in the musical Hamilton, but upon letters written between the historical figures.

Hamilton was indeed known as the Little Lion during his time in the Continental Army, due to his small stature and tendency to get overly passionate during military and political discussions. I have no historical evidence that Laurens perpetuated the nickname.

Again, please leave a review with your questions or thoughts! No one likes to feel isolated from their readers. Much love, Ell.


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